Victor V. Sumerkin graduated from the Leningrad Conservatoire and finished its post-graduate course with distinction under the guidance of the famous pedagogue Michael Buyanovsky.

Victor Sumerkin is a laureate of various music compe titions, an Honoured Artist of Russia and a holder of the Decoration of Honour. His performing career began at the Kirov (now Mariinsky) Theatre and continued for another 30 years with the Symphony Orchestra of the Leningrad Philharmonic Society, directed for many years by Yuri Temirkanov.

Victor Sumerkin has successfully combined his performing career of fifty years with teaching activities. The best illustration of V. Sumerkin’s successful teaching practice may be the fact that since 1963 his students have never failed to become prizewinners and award recipients at each competition they took part in. Today one can find the former students of Victor Sumerkin playing with orchestras in St. Petersburg, other cities of Russia and CIS, as well as in Germany, Columbia, South Korea, Vietnam, and Poland.